English Language Learners

Director of English Language Learners

The district is committed to providing appropriate learning environments and support services for English language learners. The overall goal of Queen Bee District’s English as a Second Language and Bilingual Education programs is to promote the acquisition of social and academic English language and literacy skills without the loss of the student's home language and culture. Our programs develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Both programs are grounded on meeting the needs of English Learners as they develop English language proficiency, while simultaneously providing an academically challenging environment.

Students are selected for our language support programs based on an English language screener. Dependent on the data received from screening, students are placed in a bilingual or sheltered instructional program. Parents must give their consent in order for their children to be enrolled in either program.

Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE)

Full-time Spanish-English Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) is offered at multiple schools at Queen Bee district 16. These services are provided in a self-contained classroom where all EL students share the same home language of Spanish. These students receive instruction in both Spanish and English.

The part-time TBE programs are similar to English as a Second Language programs. Students are grouped in an ESL teacher’s classroom and a resource bilingual teacher and/or paraprofessional pushes-in or pulls-out students. The TBE teachers uses a non-English language and English in instruction in order to more effectively support EL students’ transition from their first language to English. TBE part-time services are provided in Vietnamese and Urdu.

Students enrolled in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program have various home languages; they do not speak the same non-English language. EL students are clustered in various classrooms with their English speaking peers. The classroom teacher is certified to teach both English as a Second Language and general education and he or she shelters instruction throughout the day in all core subject areas. Students in grades 4-8 spend an additional 40 minute period receiving dedicated language instruction during the school wide intervention block.